In 2016, Bloomingfoods introduced our Positive Change register roundup program as a community-driven fundraising campaign that offers shoppers the opportunity to round their purchase to the nearest dollar, or donate more if they wish. It is so incredibly inspiring to see how small change can make such a big impact!

we are accepting applications for our 2025 Positive Change Program January 1st, 2024 through August 1st, 2024.

The Positive Change candidates are voted on each year by our owner-members during our annual election. Once the election is finished and organizations have been chosen, organizations are assigned months based on average sales during each month and number of votes received. Organizations with the most votes will be placed in months with highest sales.

For more information about our Positive change program qualifications and how to apply, please visit https://www.bloomingfoods.coop/positive-change-application or click the button below.

2024 Positive Change Recipients

January $7,893.56 - Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County: For 35 years, Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County (HFHMC) has been committed to building and sustaining affordable homeownership opportunities for local families and individuals. All families in the program qualify based on their need for housing, the ability to pay back an affordable mortgage, and a willingness to partner with the organization by volunteering at least 250 hours of "sweat equity" through homeowner readiness classes, volunteering at the Habitat ReStore, and building their neighbors' homes and their own. Since 1988, HFHMC has built 227 homes, housing nearly 840 individuals, including 475 children. HFHMC is currently building homes in its third neighborhood, Osage Place, and the funds raised through the Positive Change program will be used to purchase the materials needed to build a future home in the neighborhood.

February $7,846.40 - Sycamore Land Trust: Sycamore Land Trust was founded in 1990 to preserve the beauty, health, and diversity of southern Indiana’s natural landscape through strategic land conservation and environmental education. We preserve 10,418 acres on over 141 permanently protected properties, restoring declining habitats like wetlands and native wildflower meadows to support rare and endangered species. We maintain over 30 miles of free hiking trails on 13 public preserves and our Environmental Education Program connects thousands of people of all ages and abilities to nature through guided hikes and free outdoor nature programming for local schools and community organizations. A donation to Sycamore will help create a future in which southern Indiana has diverse and abundant habitats for native plants and animals, clean air and water, working lands that are productive and sustainable, and people who embrace the connection between a healthy environment and our quality of life.

March $9,398.42 - Community Kitchen of Monroe County, Inc.: Community Kitchen is the largest provider of free meals in Monroe County. We provide dinner services to anyone in need, no questions asked, from two permanent locations and various mobile sites six days/week. In addition, we have programs targeted at providing food to children, seniors, and the chronically ill, where they are. In 2022, we provided 298,151 meals; 62% of the people we served were children, 15% were seniors and 14% were unhoused.

April - New Hope Family Shelter: New Hope for Families is a community leader in social services for families in crisis. It administers a dynamic emergency shelter program, keeping families together and equipping them to progress into stable housing, and offers a vibrant, high-quality early learning program that gives children the good start they deserve and nurtures advantages that last a lifetime. Funds received from Bloomingfoods' Positive Change program will help provide meals and nutritious snacks for 48 children birth to age 5 in our early learning program, and will also support New Hope’s acclaimed “Plot to Tot” education program. “Plot to Tot” encourages young children to develop positive attitudes toward healthy foods, through age-appropriate gardening experiences, a network of local growers, and menus emphasizing fresh fruits and vegetables.

May - Area 10 Agency on Aging: Our Positive Change rewards will directly benefit our Mobile Food Pantry, which delivers supplemental groceries to home-bound individuals, including fresh produce from our Area 10 raised garden. We reach over 300 individuals monthly through this service and serve over 3,000 through all Area 10 services. We also use the support for providing emergency food services, both grocery and home delivered, whenever needed.

June - Bloomington Meals on Wheels: Bloomington Meals on Wheels provides medically-tailored meals to Bloomington residents who are unable to prepare nutritious meals due to chronic illness, serious disability, or advanced age. Volunteers deliver two prepared meals, one hot and one cold, over lunchtime each day Monday through Friday. Funds raised will provide meals for 40% of our recipients who cannot afford the $12 per day fee. $10,000 would provide 2,000 meals for your Bloomington neighbors.

July - The Center for Sustainable Living: Through diverse efforts, such as the Neighborhood Planting Project, Indiana Solar for All, and the Bloomington Community Bike Project, the Center for Sustainable Living decreases the community’s reliance on fossil fuels and makes food sustainability, green energy, green transportation, and self-sufficiency attainable for all, regardless of race, class, or sexual orientation. Each of these projects works to provide sustainable lifestyle options for people with limited income: by providing free, sustainable transportation (through the Earn-a-Bike program), free food-bearing native plants for their yards (71,000 since 2017), and free installation of solar power on their homes (8-12 households per year). The CSL is the non-profit umbrella that supports these projects and many others. If selected as a Positive Change recipient, the funds would be directed to these three projects, which currently have the greatest need for funding.

August - Boys & Girls Clubs of Bloomington: The vision of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Bloomington is to provide all youth and teens in Monroe County high quality experiences that lead to fulfilling and meaningful lives. We believe in fostering integrity, citizenship, excellence and teamwork. The funds will be used to help support activities at our clubs and after school programs for youth.

September - Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard: Funds from Bloomingfoods Positive Change will be used to support MHC’s low-barrier, client-choice food pantry, which provides access to healthy food in ways that cultivate dignity, self-sufficiency, and community. MHC’s pantry supports 10,000 visits per month, providing community members with free access to a variety of foods, with an emphasis on fresh produce donated by and purchased from local growers.

October - Bloomingfoods’ Choice

November - Beacon, Inc.: Beacon aids and empowers individuals experiencing extreme poverty, especially hunger and homelessness. Our six programs provide hunger relief, housing, and shelter to thousands of people each year. All Positive Change proceeds will fund Phil's Kitchen, our hunger relief program, which provides breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday to hundreds of people each week. In 2021, Phil's Kitchen served 69,385 meals. With Positive Change's support, Beacon will continue to feed individuals experiencing extreme poverty in our community.

December - Middle Way House: Middle Way House is a social services organization that has existed in the Bloomington Community for over 50 years, supporting all Survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. Our comprehensive services include Prevention Programs, Crisis Intervention, Legal Advocacy, Emergency Shelter, Childcare and Youth Programs, Support Groups, and Transitional Housing (The RISE!). Funds will be used to support these programs regarding operation costs that directly affect the delivery of our services.

2023 Positive Change Recipients

January $8,867.71- Stone Belt: Stone Belt Arc is a nonprofit organization that provides education and support for people with disabilities. Established in 1959 in Bloomington, Indiana, by nine families with children with disabilities, the founding families envisioned educational and community-inclusion opportunities for their children, which did not exist then. Stone Belt supports more than 1,200 people in Monroe, Bartholomew, and Lawrence counties. Stone Belt would use Positive Change funding to purchase couches, cabinets, desks, chairs, and a solar shade and replace the broken seals in our existing sculpted window in the Employment First classroom. Stone Belt’s goal for an Employment First classroom is to ensure that individuals with disabilities, including those with complex and significant disabilities, for whom job placement in the past has been limited, or has not traditionally occurred, have access to technology, innovative employment services and other assistance needed for competitive, integrated employment.

February $10,704.01- Bloomington Pets Alive! Inc.: Since 2005, Pets Alive has performed more than 224,000 affordable, high-quality spay/neuter surgeries. In addition, our Wellness Clinic offers preventative care for pets by providing low-cost vaccines, microchipping, flea/tick treatments, and more; in 2021 alone we gave more than 16,000 vaccinations! Our goal is to ensure that all furry family members have access to basic health services, regardless of their person’s financial position. Funds raised will continue our mission to end pet overpopulation through spaying/neutering and assist community members and their pets to live their healthiest lives.

March $10,211.66 - WFHB Bloomington Community Radio: WFHB would like to update our computers and technical equipment in our News Department. WFHB’s award-winning News Department is an important independent media voice in Bloomington and the surrounding 6 counties within our broadcast signal. The investment we make in providing updated and functional tools to this department will not only help our volunteer news anchors but also our Youth Radio program participants who want hands-on experience in the field of journalism. The computer equipment we currently use was given to us by a donor many years ago and purchased second-hand from IU Surplus.

April $10,094.23 - Friends of Lake Monroe: Friends of Lake Monroe was founded in 2016 to protect and enhance Lake Monroe and its watershed. Lake Monroe is the sole source of drinking water for Bloomington and Monroe County. The Bloomingfoods roundup dollars will help us educate the public about the top threats to Lake Monroe (sediment, nutrients, and bacteria); expand our pilot program addressing septic system maintenance needs in the watershed; and encourage conservation practices on farms and forestland in the watershed. Together we can improve the quality of water in Lake Monroe and reduce the frequency of harmful algal blooms, protecting our source of drinking water for years to come.

May $9,627.02 - Lake Monroe Water Fund: The Lake Monroe Water Fund is one of approximately 50 water funds worldwide sparked by the Nature Conservancy to meet local freshwater needs. The LMWF is the first water fund in Indiana and works on tangible projects upstream from Lake Monroe which help preserve it as Bloomington's sole drinking water source. Money raised through Bloomingfoods' Positive Change program will be used for projects that reduce sediment and nutrient (fertilizer/septic waste/animal waste) runoff within the Lake Monroe watershed. We promote nature-based solutions like native plantings along streams and agricultural cover crops to achieve this in a sustainable, economical, and environmentally sound manner.

June $9,200.27 - Bloomington Community Orchard: The Bloomington Community Orchard is an all-volunteer nonprofit (501c3), devoted to growing fruit trees and other perennial edible agriculture for the community to enjoy while growing our orcharding skills through education and experience-sharing. The publicly owned orchard is maintained entirely by volunteers, and the harvest is available to everyone. We offer free community events and classes for students of all ages, educational tours for youth around the community, free fruit trees and other food-producing perennials for local nonprofits, and we provide free, local, organically-grown food to those that are hungry while teaching the next generation how to grow their own food. If selected for this initiative, as an all-volunteer nonprofit, we would put all the funds towards more educational and edible resources, including a new propagation station to get more food out into the community.

July $7,679.57 - People's Cooperative Market: People’s Cooperative Market will continue to buy local food and deliver to underserved and therefore vulnerable populations in our community. In 2021, PCM provided more than $55,000.00 worth of food for free to community members courageous enough to ask for food support. 100% of the money from Bloomingfoods Round Up will buy more local nutrient-dense food to distribute for free to individuals, families, pantries, food banks, and shelters experiencing food insecurity. Food insecurity is the lack of access to enough good, healthy, and culturally appropriate food AND having insufficient amounts of food, a diet that is lacking in quality, variety, or desirability. (Foodfoward.org)

August $7,925.37 - All-Options: All-Options uses direct service and social change strategies to promote unconditional, judgment-free support for people in all of their decisions, feelings, and experiences with pregnancy, parenting, abortion, and adoption. We recognize that these issues are complex, but one thing is certain: Everyone deserves to have all options. We do this with the All-Options Talkline, the Hoosier Diaper Program, and the Hoosier Abortion Fund. Here in Bloomington, we provide over 13,000 diapers to local families each month, along with pads, tampons, baby wipes, pull-ups, and many other essential care items.

September $7,823.49 - Farm to Family: Farm to Family Fund purchases fresh, local, sustainably produced food at half price from farmers' market vendors who have unsold product. The food is donated to The Rise, Community Kitchen of Monroe County, and Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard. As an all-volunteer organization, we spend almost all of the funds we raise to purchase food. During the fiscal year from May 2021-April 2022, the Fund paid farmers almost $113,000 and donated over $225,500 worth of food to our partner agencies—60% more than the previous year. Positive Change funds would greatly benefit the farmers and agencies we work with.

October $15,100.57 - Lost River Co-op: Lost River Market and Deli is a consumer-owned co-op with an emphasis on local foods. The tornadoes in August tore apart Paoli's city square and did serious damage to other parts of town. Lost River was forced to close for four days and lost almost half of their perishable and frozen inventory. All such items were donated to local restaurants so that they could be prepared and distributed to local residents. Lost River Market will use the funds raised to reconfigure their cooler system and strategically replace inventory to serve their community.

November $8,417.69 - Monroe County Public Library: The Friends of Monroe County Public Library sponsors award-winning MCPL programs, services, and collections for all ages at three permanent locations plus mobile community outreach points. We support the Library initiatives you know and love, from early childhood and adult literacy programs to Story Walks, Summer Reading Games, homework help, teen craft sessions, and more. With the new Southwest Branch opening in 2023, funds are needed for expanded programming including in the new Teaching Kitchen! Friends are members of the community just like you - people who value the library and its many services. Your support provides free, equitable, and impartial access to information and promotes reading and lifelong learning for all!

December $7,609.41 - Exodus Refugee Immigration, Inc.: Exodus Refugee Immigration is dedicated to the protection of human rights by serving the resettlement needs of refugees and other displaced people fleeing persecution, injustice, and war by welcoming them to Indiana. Funding will allow the agency the flexibility to support Bloomington suboffice personnel, resources, and services needed to aid refugee clients to make a successful transition to life in the United States.

2022 Positive Change Recipients

January $11,041.27 - Beacon, Inc.

February $11,404.29 - New Hope for Families

March $13,276.56 - Boys & Girls Clubs of Bloomington

April $12,363.22 - Sycamore Land Trust

May $13,274.78 - Bloomington Meals on Wheels, Inc.

June $12,747.72 - Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County

July $12,907.99 - Wildcare, Inc.

August $13,297.68 - Community Kitchen of Monroe County, Inc.

September $13,360.12 - Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard

October $10,132.74 - Bloomingfoods Employee Educational Scholarship (BEES)

November $9,657.30 - Area 10 Agency on Aging

December $9,736.26 - Hoosier Hills Food Bank

Since January 2016, our customers have raised a total of

$923,943.56!

So far in 2024: $25,138.38

Previous Yearly Totals:

2023: $113,261.00

2022: $143,199.93

2021: $141,590.50

2020: $125,533.17

2019: $114,968.31

2018: $105,761.27

2017: $95,802.27

2016: $58,688.73